The Economics of Information Control

Editorial

Abstract

Nearly a decade ago, in Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, MIT professor Janet H. Murray presented her vision of the future for the newly burgeoning World Wide Web. She dreamed of “a single comprehensive global library of paintings, films, books, newspapers, television programs, and databases, a library that would be accessible from any point on the globe.” Gauged by her level of enthusiasm, it was as if she anticipated a modern library of Alexandria to materialize in the infinite expanses of cyberspace.